Creating Rebus - Ian Rankin Ian Rankin Keep up to date with Ian by signing up to receive his email newsletter. Please enter your email address in the box below. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Creating Rebus For more than twenty years novelist Ian Rankin has entertained and gripped us with stories of the maverick Detective Inspector Rebus, whose daily grind involves tackling Edinburgh’s grim underbelly. For Rebus, the city is just ‘a crime scene waiting to happen’. How did Edinburgh inspire such dark stories? The posts on this page explore the process of creating Rebus. Post Home address of Ian Rankin's famous fictional detective John Rebus revealed for the first time - Daily Record Home address of Ian Rankin's famous fictional detective John Rebus revealed for the first time RANKIN had previously revealed his most famous character lived in Arden Street in Marchmont, Edinburgh. Share 17 Arden Street, home of the famous fictional detective John Rebus (Photo: Alistair Linford) Share Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email IT'S the one mystery which has remained unsolved over 18 Rebus books… but now author Ian Rankin has revealed the hard-drinking detective’s home address for the first time. Rankin, 53, who is working on his 19th Rebus novel Saints of the Shadow Bible, had previously revealed his most famous character lived in Arden Street in Marchmont, Edinburgh. The location has been a source of fascination to fans, with many visiting the street to follow in the footsteps of the retired detective inspector. Now Rankin, who once lived in Arden Street, has posted a picture clue on his website and we have identified Rebus’s flat as No17. The author wrote: “Now that I’ve finished second draft of next book, I know what I still need to know – so this week I do necessary research.

“Next book set predominantly in Edinburgh, so research day has involved a nice long walk: Caledonian Hotel, New Town, Marchmont...” And underneath a picture of a four-storey sandstone block of flats, he teased: “Arden Street – top windows = Rebus’s flat.” The three-bedroom home is more than 100 years old and similar properties fetch around £300,000. Yesterday, 22-year-old Edinburgh University student Robert Kitney – whose family own the flat – admitted he had never read a Rebus novel. He said: “My parents are fans of Rankin and were thrilled to discover it is Rebus’s flat. “I don’t suppose it will become as famous as 221b Baker Street – Sherlock Holmes’s address – but maybe we will get some tourists. “I suppose I’ll have to read the books now too.” Robert Kitney in his flat at 17 Arden Street. (Photo: Alistair Linford) Rebus fans can join organised tours of locations mentioned in the books or follow the map posted on Rankin’s website. But the recent picture clue is the first time he has pinpointed the exact location of the detective’s home.

Rankin was a 24-year-old post-graduate student at Edinburgh University when he conceived his iconic hero. The author, now the UK’s biggest-selling crime writer, said: “Detective John Rebus was born on the evening of March 19, 1985, in the ground floor apartment I shared with two other students in Arden Street, Edinburgh, Scotland. “The idea came to me as I sat by the fire in my student digs. My bedsit would have been the original living room of the flat. It was spacious with high ceilings and freezing. “There was a single bed and a desk and chair by the large bay window. “Rebus’s flat is opposite the building I was living in when I wrote Knots and Crosses, the first Inspector Rebus novel.” In that first book, Rankin describes the flat that is home for the divorced detective – brought to life on TV by actor Ken Stott. He wrote: “John Rebus’s flat was his castle. Once through the door he would pull up his drawbridge and let his mind go blank, emptying himself of the world for as long as he could.

“Many weeks ago, in a crazed state of righteousness, he had put up shelves along one wall of the living room, intending his sprawling collection of books to rest there. “But somehow they managed to crawl across the floor, getting under his feet, so that he used them as stepping stones into the hallway and bedroom.” Like us on Facebook Most Read Most Recent Most Read Most Recent The Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus Feature Page on Undiscovered Scotland The Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus Leith & the River Forth from Calton Hill Edinburgh is home to author Ian Rankin and to his best known creation, Inspector John Rebus. Rebus is the focus of a series of over 20 detective novels that have sold millions of copies worldwide in many languages. But the city is not just the backdrop to the Rebus novels, it is also a central character in most of them. Through Rebus many people have come to know Edinburgh less as the beautiful capital of a reborn nation than as a starkly monochrome city of crime, sleaze and overstressed police. You can experience the Edinburgh of Rankin & Rebus from the gripping pages of the novels, and find out more from the official fan site, linked from this page.

But a growing number of people from all corners of the globe are travelling to Edinburgh to see the actual locations from the books for themselves: the pubs, the public buildings, the police station where Rebus works and even the mortuary where autopsies on victims are held. The best way to follow in the footsteps of Edinburgh's most celebrated detective is by taking one of the Rebus guided walks operated by Rebustours (also linked from this page). These two-hour walking tours introduce you to the world of Rebus and show you a variety of historic and Rebus-related locations not normally part of the conventional tourist trail. Judging by worldwide sales and by the thousands of fans who flock to Ian Rankin's book-signings and appearances at events across the world, his fan base extends to millions of readers, many of whom have not yet visited Edinburgh but who are nonetheless fascinated by his depiction of John Rebus, the grumpy, dishevelled, divorced and dysfunctional Edinburgh detective.

The character's very name is a giveaway: a rebus is the Latin for a picture puzzle, a mystery that has to be unlocked The first Inspector Rebus book was Knots and Crosses, published in 1987, and Ian Rankin admits he did not set out to write a series, still less a definitive crime novel. He saw it as a 20th-century reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Stevenson fully recognized the divisions within the Edinburgh of his time. For him it was forever a place of contrasts: rich and poor, good and evil, daytime virtues and nightly lusts, the slums of the Old Town overlooking the surface splendours of the Georgian New Town. Ian Rankin, like Stevenson a graduate of Edinburgh University, acknowledges not just Stevenson as an influence but also other classic Scottish writers. James Hogg's eerie work Notes and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) is regarded as one of the first psychological thrillers, Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is based on his own teacher, the forensic expert Dr Joseph Bell, who was a formative influence on Doyle as a medical student at the University.

Muriel Spark's novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961) reveals the divisions within Edinburgh society as seen through the eyes of girls at a private school in the 1930s. The Rebus books are published in the UK by Orion and by other publishers overseas. They are also available on audio tape and CD. Each novel is a complete story in its own right so you can jump into the series at any stage. But as Rebus himself matures as a character, many prefer to read the books in chronological order. Rankin has also published a number of collections of short stories, some of which also feature John Rebus, along with other books penned under the name Jack Harvey. Part of the great fascination of the Rebus series is the way Ian Rankin draws on real events or places in weaving his plots. The Falls revolves around some eerie wooden dolls on display in the Museum of Scotland, and links them to legends surrounding Rosslyn Chapel. Set in Darkness involves the building of the Scottish Parliament building. And a more recent novel A Question of Blood mixes a number of real events, including a military helicopter crash similar to a real tragedy on the Mull of Kintyre.

And perhaps the most real of all the many settings in the books is John Rebus's favourite pub, the Oxford Bar. This can be found in a back street in Edinburgh's New Town: and just happens also to be Ian Rankin's favourite pub... West Bow Secrets and lies: the impossible world of DI John Rebus In this exclusive online essay taken from the current edition of the London Review of Books, John Lanchester considers the appeal of Ian Rankin's curmudgeonly detective John Rebus<p><strong>Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin.</strong><br> Orion, 415 pp., £16.99, 17 February, 0 75282 129 6 <br> <a href="">Buy it at Bol</a></p><p>According to the OED, a 'rebus' is 'an enigmatic representation of a name, word or phrase by figures, pictures, arrangement of letters etc, which suggest the syllables of which it is made up'. In 1987, Ian Rankin's novel Knots &amp; Crosses introduced us to a tough Edinburgh Detective Sergeant called John Rebus.

A series of local girls had been kidnapped and strangled. Rebus - 41-year-old drinker, ex-soldier, failed husband, absentee father, Christian, annual rereader of Crime and Punishment - begins receiving a series of cryptic notes. The first few messages say THERE ARE CLUES EVERYWHERE. Then a message is delivered to Rebus's home: FOR THOSE WHO READ BETWEEN THE TIMES. It becomes clear that the killer has some personal connection to the detective. An Eng. Lit. professor at Edinburgh University calls Rebus to say that, as the author of Reader Exercises and Directed Exegetic Response, he has noticed that the names of the victims appear to make up a word: take the first letters of their Christian names and surnames and they spell out the word Samantha. That's a rebus; it's also the name of Rebus's daughter. He dashes off to find her but she has already been abducted by the killer, an army buddy of Rebus's who cracked during SAS training and has held a grudge against him ever since.

Rebus gets there just in time to save his daughter, though not without being shot - the first of the many woundings, beatings and physical mishaps which befall him in Rankin's books.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Books Ian Rankin : NPR Ian Rankin Email April 22, 20078:00 AM ET For twenty years Scottish Detective Inspector John Rebus has been tracking down criminals in the novels of Ian Rankin. In the new book, The Naming of the Dead, (Little, Brown and Company ISBN-10: 0316057576) Rebus's new case is set during the real life backdrop of the G8 Summit which was held in Scotland in 2005. But after two decades Detective Rebus pursuit of crime maybe coming to a close, as Rankin reveals in his next novel that the aged Inspector retires. (10:13) =20 LIANE HANSEN, host: A rebus is a puzzle in which symbols or pictures represent words or syllables. Rebus is also the last name of Ian Rankin's hero in Rankin's mystery novels.

Detective Inspector John Rebus solves crimes in Scotland, and Rankin's new book, "The Naming of the Dead," marks the 20th anniversary of the Rebus character. Author Ian Rankin joins us now from the studios of member station KUHF in Houston, Texas. Welcome to the program. Mr. IAN RANKIN (Author, Detective Inspector Rebus Mystery Series): Thanks very much. HANSEN: For those who have yet to read a Rebus mystery, describe him. Mr. RANKIN: Describe him - that's kind of why I'm doing the books. I mean, the reason I keep writing about him is because I keep finding out new stuff about him. When we first met him in book one, he was 40 years old. He's now nearly 60, so he does actually age in real time. He is a cop working in a police department in Edinburgh as a detective, but really, he operates almost as a private eye. He has a thing about authority. He doesn't get on well with his superiors, and he would much rather be left alone to get his teeth into a case but do it his own way. He's a solitary sort of character.

He likes to drink. He smokes. He likes '60s and '70s rock music. He's got a busted marriage behind him. He's very close to his colleague, Siobhan Clarke, but she's learned a lot of bad things from him and she's desperately trying to go it her own way and shrug him off. HANSEN: Yeah. Why did you call him Rebus? Mr. RANKIN: As you pointed out, a rebus is a picture puzzle. And when I was a little kid, there was a Sunday newspaper we used to get in Scotland, and it had a page every Sunday of kids' puzzles including a rebus. And I wrote the first Rebus novel when I was in my early 20s and I was a postgraduate student of literature at the University of Edinburgh. And I thought, oh, what a clever thing to call him, you know? Because in the first book, he is actually being sent picture puzzles. HANSEN: Do you still like the name? Mr.

RANKIN: You know, I spent years explaining to people, and then not that long ago - just a few years ago - I actually met a guy called Joel Rebus who lives in Edinburgh, and he said, I thought you got the name out of the phone book. And I said, well, I never looked in the phone book. I met him in a bar, we just bumped into each other, we got talking. So he got the phone book, the phone directory from behind the bar and looked down, and sure enough - a Rebus, J., and his address is Rankin Drive. So it was like, I'd meant to happen, it was like, it was meant to be. HANSEN: How did he first enter your mind as a character? Mr. RANKIN: I'd gone along to sign a contract on my very first book, which was not a crime novel. It was called "The Flood." That was in the afternoon. In the evening, sitting back in my apartment, staring at the fire, I got the idea for this story, this - messages, secret messages being sent to this character.

And I remember writing some notes to myself on that first night, and it said the hero may be a cop. But I - no, I didn't grow up with detective fiction. I mean, I watched a lot of crime movies and crime shows on TV. And, sort of, crime fiction had passed me by, so I wrote the first Rebus novel without really thinking that I was writing inside the genre. HANSEN: You knew nothing about crime novels. How did you get the police stuff right, the procedural stuff right? Mr. RANKIN: Well, I did what any good research student would have done. I wrote to the chief of police in Edinburgh and said, you don't know me, but I'm writing a novel about the police, and I'm going to lift the lid off the true nature of the police in Edinburgh and show them to be complex and corrupt, and will you help me? And I got a very nice letter back saying, go to this police station at this, you know, this certain time and talk to these two detectives. So I duly turned up with my notebook and pen, and these two detectives stared at me disbelievingly and said, you're writing a book?

And they said to me, what's the, you know, what's the plot? And so I laid out for them in broad brushstrokes the plot of the first Rebus novel, "Knots and Crosses," not realizing that these very police men at this very police station were investigating a crime in the real world that was very close to what I was writing about. So basically, I became a suspect. They thought I'd done it, and I was coming in to play games with them. So I became a suspect in a missing person's case, which became a murder inquiry. So that was my first attempt at research into the police. And after that, I stayed away from them for quite some time. (Soundbite of laughter) HANSEN: I can imagine why. The new mystery, "The Naming of the Dead," is set against the 2005 G8 Summit at Gleneagles in Scotland. Why did this event make such fertile ground for a Rebus mystery? Mr. RANKIN: Oh, it's just a gift. It's a gift to the writer, especially if you're writing crime fiction.

I mean, from a - from, sort of, January or February of that year, I was reading in the newspapers there were going to be hundreds of thousands of demonstrators and rioters coming to Edinburgh. The city would be under siege, there would be roadblocks, there would be tens of thousands of cops drafted in from all over the U.K. And I had a little smile to myself for two reasons: one, I thought, this curmudgeonly cop I've created, Rebus, would hate all of that, but most of all, he would hate other cops from outside Edinburgh trespassing on his patch. And I thought, what an interesting backdrop. You know, if Rebus is actually trying to solve a crime but all this other stuff is happening in the background, that would make it interesting because the story really is, at its heart, about personal responsibility. It's about the difference that we think we make to the world. Do rock stars who stand up on a stage and hold concerts for world peace or for, you know, to end war or whatever, or end poverty - do they make a difference? Hundreds of thousands of people marching through the streets - do they make a difference? Do the politicians themselves make a difference?

And, I mean, the irony there was that on the fourth day of that week, we had the bombings in London, the 777 bombings. And what we discovered was that a couple of zealots with a knapsack filled with explosives can make a much bigger difference in the short term than any of us. HANSEN: Did that affect your writing of the book? I mean, the timeline of the book… Mr. RANKIN: Yeah. HANSEN: …it takes place within a few days but before the bombings. Mr. RANKIN: I just wasn't - you know, when I started thinking about writing the book, I had nothing in mind like that. But because it actually happened in the real world, it had to become part of the storyline. And I didn't want it to vicariously become part of the storyline, so I had to find a way of actually making sure that it was intrinsic to everything that I was going to say. HANSEN: Well, there were two mysteries actually going on. One is when someone who was attending the G8, a member of Parliament - he falls, is pushed, he jumps off one of the bulwarks during the big, fancy dinner.

But Rebus is also called on to solve a crime of what looks to be serial killing, kind of, vigilante killing of people who have been in prison for rape or sexual assault, and they've come out of prison, and then they're murdered in a pretty gruesome way. And one of the places that Rebus ends up is a place that you call Clootie Well, and it's a place - I mean, this is so strange - it's a place where there are bits of clothing hung on trees, and they find some evidence of three murders. But Clootie Well - what is that? Mr. RANKIN: Well, it's yet another example that anything you make up is less strange than the real world. Having spent G8 week in Edinburgh, my family and I then went on vacation, and we went just north of Inverness in the highlands of Scotland, and there was - there were tourist signposts to this thing called the Clootie Well, and I knew, from the mists of time, that "clootie" was a Scots word meaning cloth or clothing. And so we thought, well, let's take a look.

And when we appeared in this clearing, sure enough, all the branches of the trees were draped with pieces of cloth and items of clothing in various states of decay. And we learned that local people had been leaving items of clothing here for centuries to appease the wood sprites. It's a kind of good luck charm. Now, as the pieces of clothing deteriorated, they fell to the ground and created a kind of mulch upon which you walked, and this kind of smell of rotten was overpowering. And there was a little spring that bubbled out of the ground, and people had left candles and toys and little dolls and candy bars and things. It was the creepiest tourist attraction I think I'd ever been to. And as soon as - being - having the mind that I've got, maybe, as soon as I walked into it, I thought: crime scene. It was obvious to me, here I was in the middle of the vacation, thinking of things for my next book; and all I did was physically move a hundred miles south to the outskirts of Gleneagles, which is where the G8 leaders were actually meeting, and that gave me a reason to get Rebus within striking distance of the G8.

HANSEN: You are writing a new book about him, because I wondered - the way that "The Naming of the Dead" ends, it appears that there would be more work for Detective Inspector Rebus. Mr. RANKIN: Yeah, but the new book, the one I'm writing just now, is his retirement book. At the end of it - I mean, I've got it in mind - at the end, he will retire. And what happens next, I'm not exactly sure. I'll think about it in the fullness of time. I mean, there are various things I can do. Siobhan, his colleague, can become the main police character and he, retired, a civilian, can help her out or he can do the dirty work for her. Or, we can change the law. There is a fan of the books who is a member of the Scottish Parliament, and she is debating this with the justice minister. She wants the justice minister to change the retirement age in the real world for cops so that Rebus can continue to work until he's 65.

I can't tell you how much hate mail I am getting from real-life cops who are looking forward to their retirement at 60, thank you very much, and don't want to work until they're 65 just so a fictional character continue to tread the mean streets of Edinburgh. HANSEN: Do you think if you met him, you'd like him, and would he like you? Mr. RANKIN: He certainly wouldn't like me. He would - I mean, he's an Old Testament sort of guy. He very much sees the world in black and white and good and bad. He would see me as a lily-livered liberal who has never had to do a hard day's work in his life. The things we would share in common, we could stand at a bar and we could drink a pint of beer, and we could talk music. And once we'd exhausted that, that would be about it. HANSEN: You want to write American comic books. You're going to write a graphic novel, right? Mr. RANKIN: Apparently I am. I was in New York recently.

I went to see DC Comics and Vertigo Comics, and I am doing a "Hellblazer" - "John Constantine: Hellblazer." It's a standalone graphic novel, I think, of 64 pages. It's what I wanted to do when I was 10 years old, so you can say that I've - you know, my life has taken a sudden switch, and from writing crime novels I am going to do at least one major comic book in my life, and that'll be such a thrill. I'm looking forward to that challenge. HANSEN: Ian Rankin is the author of "The Naming of the Dead." The book, published by LittleBrown, marks the 20th anniversary of Rankin's character, Detective Inspector John Rebus. Ian Rankin joined us from the studios of member station KUHF in Houston, Texas. Thanks a lot. Good luck. Mr. RANKIN: Liane, a real pleasure. Thank you. (Soundbite of music) HANSEN: To get hooked on the latest Inspector Rebus mystery, go to npr.org where you can read the first chapter of "The Naming of the Dead." This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.

I'm Liane Hansen. Copyright © 2007 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Ian Rankin - Interview | BookPage Ian Rankin 7 questions with . . . Ian Rankin BookPage interview by Eliza Borné Best known for his books about Detective Inspector John Rebus, Ian Rankin has written a suspenseful winner with The Complaints, our March Mystery of the Month. Starring Malcolm Fox, a member of the internal affairs department of the Edinburgh police force, BookPage's Whodunit columnist calls The Complaints "superb on every level." Get to know Rankin a little better in his Q&A with BookPage—in which he shares his "words to live by," his proudest moment and more: Name one book you think everyone should read (besides your own!).

The book everyone should read is The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark—a perfect, short novel, in turn hilarious and terrifying. How did you approach writing stand-alone novels after so many books with Detective Inspector John Rebus? Were you nervous about disappointing fans? A lot of fans were sad to see Inspector Rebus retire, but I have enjoyed the challenge of presenting them with new characters and stories. The Complaints has been well received, which gives me hope that I continue to exist, even without my shadow twin! Describe The Complaints in one sentence. The Complaints: An internal affairs cop fights for his job and his sanity in a city on the edge of physical and moral bankrupcy. Where do you write? I write in a room in my house. The house is a large, Victorian-era property in a leafy suburb of Edinburgh. My office would have been one of the bedrooms. I have a desk, a sofa and a hi-fi system in there. That's about all I need. What was the proudest moment of your career so far? There have been many highlights, from the thrill of first publication, to (eventual) success, the Gold Dagger, Diamond Dagger and Edgar.

But I was probably most pleased with a letter from the Queen. She intended to award me with the OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for "services to literature." It was proof that the mystery novel was regarded as literature—who am I to argue? If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one fictional character, who would you want it to be? Not Rebus—we'd just fight. Maybe Molly Bloom from James Joyce's Ulysses—a fascinating, earthy, practical human being. I'm sure she'd have stories for the campfire. What are your words to live by? Words to live by? Words are my life—I love all of them equally. Ian Rankin's detective is back at work - StarTribune.com Books 241182671 Ian Rankin's detective is back at work Ian Rankin takes his famous detective out of retirement, and brings himself to Once Upon a Crime on Saturday. By Kim Ode Star Tribune January 20, 2014 — 3:11pm Purchase: Order Reprint Some people just can’t stay retired, even if they’re not real.

Take John Rebus, an Edinburgh detective created by Scotland’s Ian Rankin. Despite winning many of the big awards in crime fiction, Rankin retired his character in 2009, only to find fans clamoring for more Rebus. Rankin has relented with “Saints of the Shadow Bible” (Little, Brown, $26), although Rebus returns with a demotion — and an attitude. Critics approve of the decision. As Rebus is likened in the book to “one of those chess wizards, the ones who play a dozen boards at the same time,” so the Guardian described Rankin “as he weaves his dual plots into an ever more tangled maze, and then smoothly, oh so satisfactorily, irons them out again.” Rankin will appear at Once Upon a Crime bookstore, 604 W. 26th St., Minneapolis, for a reading and book-signing at 7 p.m. Saturday. We talked with Rankin about his imaginary staff canteen, why he likes giving readings in penitentiaries and what his main character has done for him. Ross Gillespie and Tricia Malley Author Ian Rankin Q. Describe your writing room. A.

It’s one of the bedrooms in my three-story Victorian-era house in Edinburgh. There’s a writing desk, computer, sofa and hi-fi system. Oh, and some clutter — lots of CDs and vinyl LPs plus folders, piles of books, magazines, newspapers. Large windows. I like it very much. Q. What is your writing strategy — do you have rituals that you maintain? A. Well, panic plays a part. I usually write a new book every year, which means no time for dawdling. When I know I have a deadline, the adrenaline kicks in. I don’t do a huge amount of pre-plotting. I have a theme, and a rough plot that may allow me to explore that theme. Then I start writing. Most of the research is done between the first draft and the second, because by then I know where the gaps are and what those gaps may be. Q. How do you get past writers’ block (or the distraction of the Internet)? A. I don’t have much time for writers’ block! If I hit a problem, I discuss it with my wife. She often offers answers. Or I go for a walk. The Internet is a distraction, of course, but I do love Twitter.

Writing is a solitary occupation, and when I take a break and check Twitter it’s as though I’ve entered the staff canteen — and the canteen is full of clever, funny people who are talking about all the latest news. Q. Do you have a favorite book from childhood? A. My favorite book from childhood is probably “Green Eggs and Ham.” Thing is, it’s not from my childhood. For whatever reason, Dr. Seuss passed me by — until I became a dad. I used to read “Green Eggs” to my son Jack every night when he was very young. I loved it and can still, 20 years on, recite chunks of it. Q. What books do you re-read? A. I spent three years at Edinburgh University studying towards a Ph.D. in the novels of Muriel Spark. I never completed my thesis, being too busy writing my own books [including the first Inspector Rebus novel], but I still love Spark’s poetic, witty, biting satires. I often reread “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” “Girls of Slender Means,” “The Driver’s Seat” and “The Public Image.” Q. What’s on your desk? A.

A list of things I need to do, books I need to read, a lawyer’s phone number and an unopened box of multivitamins from Christmas two years ago. Q. Where are you right now? Describe what you see. A. So I’m seated on the small leather sofa in my office. It faces the hi-fi system. I’m playing David Bowie’s 2013 album “The Next Day.” On the walls are paintings and prints by some of my favorite artists — John Bellany, Paolozzi. Plus a cherished photo of Keith Richards signing a book for me. It’s night and a gale is blowing, so the wooden shutters are closed. Q. What are you reading right now? A. Right now I’m reading Donald Fagen’s oblique, entertaining memoir “Elegant Hipsters.” He doesn’t say much about his time in Steely Dan, but is a fine essayist. I’ve also got James Salter’s “Collected Stories” on the go. Q. What’s been the best place so far to do a reading? A. Well, I’ve been known to do readings in bars and even breweries — and those are usually a lot of fun.

I also get good, different questions from prisoners when I give talks in penitentiaries. Q. What authors have inspired you? A. Many authors have inspired me. The Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote “Jekyll and Hyde,” the Scottish novelist William McIlvanney, James Ellroy, Ruth Rendell. I’ve learned — and sometimes borrowed — from the best! Q. You’ve been writing Inspector Rebus for more than 25 years. What has surprised you most about the person he’s become today? A. Rebus continually evolves and continually surprises me — that’s why I keep writing about him: It’s the only way to find out what’s going on in his world. I suppose I’m most surprised that he has elected to stick around and keep me company. He was only supposed to appear in one book … then two or three … then maybe seven or eight or nine. We’re now up to book 19, and his lifestyle hasn’t killed him yet.

Review: A Question of Blood by Ian Rankin | Books | The Guardian by Ian Rankin 368pp, Orion, £17.99 In AN Wilson's biography of Iris Murdoch, John Bayley is quoted as saying "Iris usually wrote a good one and then a dud". Such a rhythm of advance and retreat is common in literary careers; what is startling about Ian Rankin is that he seems to have cheated the graph. There have been 14 novels, a novella and short stories about John Rebus, his Edinburgh cop, and yet he remains a rare example of a bestselling author whose increasing financial advances are matched by artistic ones. A Question of Blood created newspaper fuss with only a few chapters written when Rankin revealed at last year's Edinburgh book festival that it began with a shooting at a Scottish school. The writer was accused of ghoulishly fictionalising Dunblane, but readers of the finished novel are likely to conclude that Rankin is involved in a more subtle project. In both nature and explanation, the book's fictional incident at a Scottish private school - in which an ex-soldier apparently kills two students and himself - conscientiously avoids copycatting.

However, as the plot also refers to two actual events, the Lockerbie bombing and the disputed downing of a military helicopter on Jura, it's clear that part of Rankin's scheme is to draw on Scotland's real mysteries. Such subtle patterning is typical of the growing structural complexity of the Rebus books as the series has developed. It's apparent, too, in the title's pun. A case that turns on blood-spattered diagrams also brings Rebus up against his own red stuff. One of the students killed in the school tragedy is his cousin's kid. Because of this - and the fact that the college gunman is, like Rebus, ex-army - the detective is forced to construct a psychological profile of himself: a man with a lost daughter, distant friends and a pale, loner lifestyle. The primary challenge of any long detective series is to turn new aspects of the character towards the light with each novel. A Question of Blood achieves this because Rebus, never previously very likable, begins the book under suspicion of being a murderer himself. A crook who had been threatening Rebus's colleague DS Siobhan Clarke has died in a fire.

The detective inspector, seen with the victim earlier in the evening, is admitted to hospital with scalded hands. This detail works as both a mystery and a metaphor - Rebus is a dangerous pair of hands - but also adds to the physical reality of the character. Rebus gets through on bandages and pain-killers, his major occupations, smoking and drinking, becoming fiendish puzzles. Viciously independent by temperament, he's forced to rely on DS Clarke for driving, cooking and a nervous faith that he isn't a murderer. In Clarke's centrality lies another story. As Rebus is clearly now approaching retirement, the Rankin industry (accounting for 10 per cent of all crime book sales in the UK) faces a difficult decision over future trading plans. Nicolas Freeling's readers punished him at the tills for killing off Van der Valk. Henning Mankell allowed his Inspector Wallander a pension but kept him in the background of cases solved by his detective daughter. There are strong clues in A Question of Blood that Rankin is contemplating a similar succession, with DS Siobhan Clarke taking over custody of the handcuffs.

Indeed, the unresolved sexual tension between Rebus and Clarke in this novel raises the possibility that Rebus may yet become a Denis Thatcher of crime fiction, pouring whiskeys for the new premier character and chatting over the plots. Retiring the DI would be a risk, but this 16th Rebus suggests that, while readers wouldn't push him, Rankin could survive that jump. · Mark Lawson's Going Out Live is published by Picador.

Question: What is the name of the Edinburgh Detective created by Ian Rankin?
Answer: JOHN REBUS